Just staying under the water a bit longer?

[Brick2]

I recently saw the freediving segment on Kevin Fong's programme "To Boldly Go".

From the brief description of "three stage" breathing, belly first, then chest, then shoulders, I gave it a go. And was surprised at being able to hold my breath longer. Usually a minute was my limit, but after trying the deeper breathing, I made 1:30 easily. I could have gone on but it was starting to get uncomfortable.

I'm nothing like a freediver, but enjoy swimming in rivers and lakes. Typically shallow places where it's possible to stand up. But, part of what attracts me to rivers and lakes is being able to see and interact with the wildlife. But, having to come up for air is annoying.

How difficult would it be to learn to hold my breath better? Say if I wanted to be able to stay under for two minutes before coming up again. Even that would be a very useful skill. Is it possible, through practice, to become used to holding breath longer such that it wouldn't be a strain to last for two minutes? Or, will it always be uncomfortable, but those who freedive have to work through the pain (or other considerable discomfort)?

Edit: How long can breath be held with relative safety - i.e. how long should I be staying under water before I start pushing safety envelopes?

 

[Siku]

Hi Brick2, glad to hear you enjoyed the documentary. I find diving in shallow water and seeing the wild life is one of the most beautiful ways to dive. Where are you diving by the way?

That's great that you want to increase you breath hold times. From a sarting point of 1.30 you will very quickly increase beyond 2.00, if you do the right training. Check out the thread 'How to start freediving'. It's a sticky on the beginner freediving page of the forum. There's loads of useful info about how to train breath hold:

http://forums.deeperblue.com/beginner-freediving/64959-how-start-freediving.html

How long can breath be held with relative safety - i.e. how long should I be staying under water before I start pushing safety envelopes?

As I'm sure you know, safety in freediving is of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE. As you look around the forum you'll find loads of information about safety, and sobering accounts of what can go wrong.

Freediving safety is NEVER based on time limits - so you cannot ensure you're safe by limiting dives to, for example, 2 minutes. In fact, in your case (and mine) 2.00 is quite a long dive.

You MUST ALWAYS dive with a competent buddy who can effect a rescue if necessary. There is no substitue for this simple rule. Again, loads of info on the forum.

Have fun and dive safe!

 

[Kars]

Welcome to Deeperblue!

In case of the shallow dive wild-life observation I would do FRC dives - Passive exhale, or just above passive exhale dives.

Observing wildlife is a great means to learn to dive.
I suggest following a freediving course. You'll learn the freedive principles, and a good set of techniques helping to relax better, allowing longer times, deeper dives but also through deepening of relaxation make your dives much more enjoyable, and for some into a spiritual like depth.

You're 2' goal is very doable. With some practice most freedivers can do 4 minute statics where the first 2 minutes are entirely blissful.

Love, Courage and Water!

Kars

 

[trux]

From the brief description of "three stage" breathing, belly first, then chest, then shoulders, I gave it a go. And was surprised at being able to hold my breath longer.

This techique is called hyperventilation (unless you only did really just a single deep inhale just before the dive), and it is extremely dangerous, and defintely to be avoided. Hyperventilation removes CO2 from the body, hence fooling the brain to think it has more oxygen than is the reality (the body relies on CO2 to detect inderetly the lack of oxygen), and additionally it decreases the hypoxic tolreance (after hyperventilation you will blackout at higher remaining content of O2, than you would do after normal breathing).

In othe words, hyperventilation brings you closer to the blackout from two sides: first of all it allows you to do a longer breath-hold, by suppressing the urge to breath, and in the same it lowers your hypoxic blackout threashold.

Hyperventilation is a frequent reason of death among wannabe freedivers and spearfishers, and althought (or just because) it helps suppressing the urge to breath for longer time, it is absolutely to be avoided unless you are in perfectly safe environment, under direct supervision of an experienced person (and even then its use is very questionable).

 

[JennyWren]

I didn't think that anything he said implied that he was using hyperventilation, rather that he had learned how to take a proper peak inhalation to fill his lungs/trachea to max capacity.

That being said, it's always a good idea to remind people that hyperventilation can be very dangerous!

 

[Brick2]

I'm going to look into it and check that I wasn't hyperventilating before doing it again.

I thought I was just breathing deeply, while being careful not to "purge" (I assume that means to force out every bit of air) nor to take in too much air so that the air in my lungs is too pressured.

 

[Azrael3000]

Well most people here consider everything that is not normal (i.e. without thinking about it) breathing as hyperventilation. So just relax (without thinking about breathing) and take one last big breath before your hold.
Doing just that I have tripled my hold from ~1:30 to now 4:26 with just moderate exercise within 4 months.

 

[Kars]

I'm going to look into it and check that I wasn't hyperventilating before doing it again.

I thought I was just breathing deeply, while being careful not to "purge" (I assume that means to force out every bit of air) nor to take in too much air so that the air in my lungs is too pressured.

Just relax all muscles, one by one suggesting them to relax, then 1 deeper exhale, followed by a slow deep belly chest throat inhale, hold and relax. zzz From this point let go of all tension, and just enjoy your mind and body without weighing and judgement. The perceived lung pressure is merely due to your inflexibility and muscle tension. If you don't pack, you cannot take too much air in.

Do a course and you'll be amazed about your own mind and abilities. Be warned freediving is very addictive though.

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

 

[trux]

I didn't think that anything he said implied that he was using hyperventilation, rather that he had learned how to take a proper peak inhalation to fill his lungs/trachea to max capacity!

Well, there was only a gentle hint, but sufficient to conclude he might have not been just taking a single full inhale. Additionally I mentioned the possibility of a single breath in my answer too. Brick2 spoke about learning the "three stage breathing", he did not speak about "three stage inhale", so I'd tell he might really just have learned hyperventilating in fact.

If you use a three-stage breathing, you necessarily breathe much deeper than normally - the inhales are then rather close to the maximal capacity of the lungs. The normal breathing of an average person at rest is around 12 breaths/min, each of them roughly half a liter (it means 6 l/min). And practically the entire 0.5 liter is just dead air you move there and back in the bronchi, trachea and nose-mouth cavity, meaning you remove relatively little CO2, but still it is perfectly enough to keep your body in equilibrium. Now, if you replace the flat breathing with a three-stage deep breathing, let's say 4 breaths of 5 liters per minute (and I am moderate here), you ventilate 20 liters instead of 6, meaning 333% hyperventilation. Additionally, you are completely blowing off all the dead air, meaning that effectively the hyperventilation is even stronger.

If you breathe in this way during 5 minutes, you ventilate 100 liters instead of 30 (70 liters too much), and removing so from the body 3.5 liters of CO2 more than you should (roughly 5% of the extra exhaled air). You won't be able to replace that amount of CO2 even during a maximal hold. You would need approximately the same amount of oxygen (or almost 18 liters of air) to metabolize it into that amount of CO2 (well, in fact the same amount of O2 but less air, since some oxygen is in the blood too).

So something that you might call a harmless and moderate breath-up like this, can remove more CO2 than your body produces during a maximal breath-hold. Even after a few minutes of a breath-hold, the level of the CO2 in your blood may not be even at the resting level, putting you so in a great risk of a blackout. Fortunately, due to the limited diffusion of CO2 into the lungs, and due to some other mechanisms, the blood CO2 will rise a bit quicker, but still will be lower than it would be after normal breathing, meaning you are less protected against hypoxia, and will blackout earlier (additionally without even seeing it coming).

 

[Brick2]

By "three stage breathing" I was (as described on the TV programme) taking in air first into the belly, then as this filled into the chest, and finally into (as it felt) into the shoulders.

But, I had been taking multiple such breaths, before I held for 1:30. So, that meets the description in the previous post, I think.

So, given the previous description, I think I was hyperventilating. I did notice that after a few breaths like that, that I didn't feel the urge to breathe for a while.

As I said above, I'm not trying anything again until I've learned more about this and can be sure that I'm applying the correct strategy.

 

[Simos]

If I'm right this was the programme where Sara C was explaining how to breathe in?

Obviously if you do such deep 3 stage breaths back to back you will hyperventilate to some extend (depends how fast) but you can use the 3 stage breathing when you take in your final breath to ensure that you take in a full breath of air.

If you can, take a course and all will be explained

 

[MartinTee]

I didn't think that anything he said implied that he was using hyperventilation, rather that he had learned how to take a proper peak inhalation to fill his lungs/trachea to max capacity.

That being said, it's always a good idea to remind people that hyperventilation can be very dangerous!

Got me worried for a second there!

I can quite easily get past two minutes without any contractions and indeed as Kars has mentioned it is blissful.

I relax my body, breathe normally and then take two/three big breathes before I do a hold. I use belly/chest/shoulders technique which were all shown to me at a freediving course.

I thought I may have been hyperventilating because I see no indication that he is.

But I never force(wrong word, am more conscious that i'm using these parts of my body) my breathe, more the muscles and body parts that help take in a bigger amount to do the belly/chest/shoulders technique. It's always slow and relaxed, the natural way.


To reply to the topic, find yourself a freedive/swimming buddy. You're time then in the water will be more fun as you are sharing it with someone. You'll see more with the extended time underneath with better breathe holds and it's just a great way to spend a day, learning to freedive is addictive! It's taken over all of my other hobbies haha

Also, don't worry on the numbers. If you learn to freedive properly, they'll come in time. This is how I'm trying to approach it and have gone from a 2minute 50 static hold to 4minutes 15 in 4 months

 

[MartinTee]

Well, there was only a gentle hint, but sufficient to conclude he might have not been just taking a single full inhale. Additionally I mentioned the possibility of a single breath in my answer too. Brick2 spoke about learning the "three stage breathing", he did not speak about "three stage inhale", so I'd tell he might really just have learned hyperventilating in fact.

If you use a three-stage breathing, you necessarily breathe much deeper than normally - the inhales are then rather close to the maximal capacity of the lungs. The normal breathing of an average person at rest is around 12 breaths/min, each of them roughly half a liter (it means 6 l/min). And practically the entire 0.5 liter is just dead air you move there and back in the bronchi, trachea and nose-mouth cavity, meaning you remove relatively little CO2, but still it is perfectly enough to keep your body in equilibrium. Now, if you replace the flat breathing with a three-stage deep breathing, let's say 4 breaths of 5 liters per minute (and I am moderate here), you ventilate 20 liters instead of 6, meaning 333% hyperventilation. Additionally, you are completely blowing off all the dead air, meaning that effectively the hyperventilation is even stronger.

If you breathe in this way during 5 minutes, you ventilate 100 liters instead of 30 (70 liters too much), and removing so from the body 3.5 liters of CO2 more than you should (roughly 5% of the extra exhaled air). You won't be able to replace that amount of CO2 even during a maximal hold. You would need approximately the same amount of oxygen (or almost 18 liters of air) to metabolize it into that amount of CO2 (well, in fact the same amount of O2 but less air, since some oxygen is in the blood too).

So something that you might call a harmless and moderate breath-up like this, can remove more CO2 than your body produces during a maximal breath-hold. Even after a few minutes of a breath-hold, the level of the CO2 in your blood may not be even at the resting level, putting you so in a great risk of a blackout. Fortunately, due to the limited diffusion of CO2 into the lungs, and due to some other mechanisms, the blood CO2 will rise a bit quicker, but still will be lower than it would be after normal breathing, meaning you are less protected against hypoxia, and will blackout earlier (additionally without even seeing it coming).

Cheers for this Trux!

So for say a 5min breathe up, 4minutes and 40seconds, just focusing on relaxing, let your breathe do what it does is the safest way to go before a last big breathe in just for the oxygen?

This is kind of what I'm doing but do two to three belly/chest/shoulders breathe's in and breathe's out which is about 20-30 seconds. I think it's because sometimes I'm in a stuffy room maybe and trying to compensate?

 

[trux]

Limited hyperventilation is common, and if really under control and quite restricted, it may bring a slight advantage. However, the negative impact on safety is always there. The other problem of learned controlled limited breath-up hyperventilation is that in a stress situation (competition, hunting, bad weather, fear,...), the body starts hyperventilating automatically and unconsciously, and that can happen during a prolonged time (up to several hours), removing so huge amounts of CO2 from the body. Adding the learned moderate hyperventilation breath-up pattern makes then the situation even worse, and you finish easily with a blackout without even seeing it coming (very common among beginners at freediving competitions).

 

[Kars]

Well Maybe the name of the preparation is a weak choice.

"Breath-up" , just think about it, doesn't it induce thoughts of hyperventilation in your mind?

Are there better alternatives?
Let's see what you people can come up with, something that is simple and describes advanced freedive preparation better.

Let the words roll people!

 

[pingshui]

well, I would just say "relaxation", that's what it comes down to, doesn't it?
Or "relaxed breathing", if you want to stress the breathing part?

 

[Azrael3000]

Isn't it so that you don't want to stress the breathing part? Because if I understand it correctly the only time you concentrate on breathing is for your last breath before the dive. Before that relaxation is the key.

 

[AJB8]

How about 'breathe-in'? Or, alternatively, as our surfy bros phrase it: "chillaxin'".

 

[Siku]

There's no requirement to chill before a table, it will just slow down your metabolism and make it easier. Sure if you're going for a PB then chill, but for training you don't have to.

Bradycardia will kick in once you start holding anyway so by the end of the table you should be in a nice chilled space

 

[Azrael3000]

Why not Siku? If you try to relax that also means that you are training this aspect. If the table is too easy I would rather increase the time. Or am I missing something?